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Mexico: Our Neighbor’s House is On Fire

While we fight and lose wars in far-flung parts of the world, we are blind to the disasters in our own hemisphere–particularly to Mexico. While we worry about terrorists gaining control of Afghanistan, we ignore our own borders. And when we do turn our attention to Mexico it is with hysterical worry over economic refugees coming here to harvest our crops, raise our children and occupy the lower end of our economic food chain.

Our diplomats are banned from ever using the term but we share a border with a state that if not yet failed, is failing and is falling into the hands of terrorists. But since we so associate terrorism with religious and political ambitions, we fail to understand that narco-terrorism is indeed terrorism, and it is bringing Mexico down. We will feel and suffer from the tsunami this seismic event will produce.

Terrorism is not just random violence meant simply for destruction and killing. It has a purpose. Its aim is to remove from the population of any nation or people the idea that their government can protect them and offer them security. It counts on the Stockholm Syndrome, the reaction of people in danger to cast their lot, not by their values but towards those who seem to have the power of life and death over them.

The government of Mexico is at every level–Federal, State and City and Village–failing. They cannot protect the people from being killed, extorted, kidnapped and, well, terrorized. Penetrated by both normal corruption and agents of drug gangs, it offers no hope of governing the nation or assuring law and security to its citizens.

Guillermo Valdes, chief of Mexico’s National Intelligence, said on 2 August that more than 28,000 people had died in drug-related violence since 2006. Nothing has gotten better or increased the power, prestige or legitimacy of the Mexican government since August.

On the contrary, every day we read about more deaths. This month 14 bodies found in Tijuana, 16 in Juarez, 70 in a mine near Taxco, 24 in Cancun, a dozen in Acapulco and another 16 in Tepic. It is endless. We might try to kid ourselves that it is just gangsters killing gangsters, but aside from the human costs, the sense and semblance of a legitimate government able to perform normally is disappearing in Mexico.

Several days ago an entire police department resigned and walked away. They were not willing to die for nothing, for no hope of a victory over the warring cartels. A newspaper put out a front-page editorial (a plea really) to the cartels asking them what it is permitted to write about. They don’t want to die or have their children killed for a story that might offend a drug lord. They do not fear governmental censorship. They fear governmental impotence.

While we buy their drugs–helping to destabilize them–they use some of our billions to buy guns, grenades and other weapons. We help out some more by laundering their drug money. Our mainstream banks (Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Wachovia, HSBC and American Express International) have all been cited as handling Mexican drug money.

So, we buy the drugs, sell the weapons and clean the money. We are actively complicit in the destruction of the Mexican state and civil society. We are helping to create a failed state and replace it with a bunch of violently warring drug cartels. And we hardly notice. We’re too busy fighting the Afghan Taliban.

There may be reasons to be involved half way around the world. There is no way we can escape being involved in the collapse of our neighbor and its terrible consequences. Our neighbor’s house is on fire. We are feeding the flames with drug demands, indifference and xenophobia. We need to help put this fire out. We can escape neither the needs of those who flee the burning building nor the spreading flames.

You don’t mention the one obvious solution – we should legalize drugs. Nothing would work faster to end the illegal drug trade, help Mexico financially, halve our prison population, and save us billions of dollars.